McLaren’s hybrid halo car made its debut in prototype form at the Paris Motor Show to mark the 20th anniversary of the brand’s iconic F1 hypercar. As a relatively new brand it was never going to be easy to compete with the hybrid machines of Porsche and Ferrari, but McLaren delivered a 903-horsepower carbon monocoque knockout with advanced active aero and a high-9-second quarter-mile time.
The Monster Macaw’s sloping curvy body was designed by the renowned Frank Stephenson, who says he took inspiration from nature when writing the car’s look. A piece of biomimicry found its way into P1, a Caribbean sailfish seen by Stephenson while on vacation.
Sailfish, specifically Istiophorus platypterus, are the fastest water-dwelling animals on the planet, capable of swimming up to 68 miles per hour. The long hydrodynamic shape cuts through the water easily, and it can fold its dorsal fin for additional speed. These fish can grow up to 11 feet long and weigh up to 1,500 pounds, making their fast swimming even more impressive.
The story goes that Stephenson saw one hanging on the wall of the resort he was staying at and admired its size. The head of the resort, while telling Stephenson the story of the catch, commented that he was proud of his ability to catch it given its speed. On the way back to the UK, Stephenson stopped to buy a Sailfish of his own, had it filled, set up and shipped to Woking for fluid dynamics research. Later he hung it on the wall of his office.
It makes sense that he looked every day at the fish that inspired his magnum opus. Thus, P1 was born.
frank’s fish
Stephenson told BBC In a 2014 interview he said that he had sent the fish to McLaren’s aerodynamics department for a full laser scan to try to unravel nature’s hydrodynamic intricacies and speed mysteries. As it turns out, sailfish scales generate vortices of turbulence that essentially let the fish develop a pocket of air around themselves to reduce their hydrodynamic friction. Stephenson installed an artificial replica of the flaky texture on the P1’s engine inlet ducts to help it suck in larger amounts of air more efficiently. McLaren’s 727-horsepower twin-turbo V8 certainly needs as much air as it can get.
Stephenson also said the scans exposed a small pair of foil-shaped bulges on its body just in front of its tail, which helped smooth the turbulent flow of water over the fin for maximum forward thrust efficiency. In an effort to smooth out the rough air ahead of the P1’s windows, while keeping buffeting and wind noise to a minimum, they modeled some of these bulges and installed them on the support arms for the exterior mirrors. The result was better than expected.
In another example of nature inspiring a car’s design, he also said that the shape of the P1 was somewhat inspired by a running cheetah. He was going for an organic-looking shape, essentially vacuum sealing the bodywork around the car’s vital components, the way a cheetah’s skin is stretched tightly over all the muscles and tendons. Every piece of the P1 is shaped with speed in mind.
